Jennifer Harbury speaks March 31

Jennifer Harbury speaks March 31
March 1999

One of the real human rights heroes of our time, Jennifer Harbury, will be in Gainesville on March 31 at 7:30 p.m. on the UF campus at Turlington Hall room L005. Ms. Harbury is the author of two books, Bridge of Courage: Life stories of the Guatemalan Compañeros and Compañeras (Common Courage Press, 1993), and the recently released Searching for Everado: A story of love, war, and the CIA in Guatemala (Warner Books, 1997). Her latest book chronicles her search for the truth in the disappearance and now-acknowledged murder of her husband, a Guatemalan guerilla leader who disappeared in 1992, a year after their marriage. This search has included three hunger strikes in Guatemala City and in Washington, DC, a full international trial against the Guatemalan military, and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request resulting in much documentation from the US government which proved US government knowledge and complicity in Everado's detention and murder. Harbury currently has a civil rights case filed against U.S. officials from the State Department, the CIA, and the National Security Council.

Ms. Harbury began working in Guatemala in 1984 and lived there doing human rights work in 1985 and 1986. It was in 1990, while researching Mayan women combatants, that she met her husband to be. In 1995 the government admitted that Everado had been captured, tortured, and killed by the Guatemalan military, and that his murder had been ordered by Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, a School of the Americas graduate and CIA asset.

Prior to her talk, from 4:30-6:30, there will be a book signing and reception for Ms. Harbury at the Civic Media Center, 1021 West University Ave. Books by Harbury will be available thanks to Goerings Books, and food and beverages will be available as well.